


The Reality of Fear.

by calystegiia



Category: Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner - 五代 ゆう | Godai Yuu, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Gen, Heavy Descriptions of Gore, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 10:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calystegiia/pseuds/calystegiia
Summary: Alone in the field surrounded by the corpses of sheep who had been slaughtered by the wolf, the shepherd waits alone, wondering if he is to be the last to be eaten.
Relationships: Argilla/Serph (implied), Heat O'Brien/Serph Sheffield
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Reality of Fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Argilla= Ysabelle, a fan name given by my friend @mauvicmagic on twitter!  
Edited 4/18/2020

The nightmares follow him, the shadows and twisted limbs of every small body stalk him like they’re attached to his body with chains. The small bodies are stretched out inhumanly, their skin taut, stretched to its limit, swollen, threatening to burst open and pour guts out onto the floor. It threatens to mix with the chartreuse of the fluid that tries to sustain them. However, they never survive the first test. Their eyes will pool blood, pushing it from their sockets, it oozes and pours into their mouths—writhing, gaping with empty screams that unnerve him. Eventually they cave. Under the pressure of the skeletons before them, weighing them down, quartered by the society and demands from god, making them rupture, spilling guts and gore, mutating--leaving muddy contamination. He has seen it eighteen times, he is unsure how many more he could bear the same scene, beaten into repetitiveness. How many more children would be mercilessly ripped apart? Created and reared to match the perfect image to be the outlet between the world and God, to speak his words, only to instead be tortured by the very Creator. 

He sees them everywhere, lurking within his peripherals, despondent. Their eyes say it all, they burn with hatred and blood. They burn red and hot, red and hot. It leaves his hair on its end, skin prickling under the scrutiny of children who scream with no words. They scream, they don’t understand their role. But it is the one that they were left with, the curse of being a lamb. They howl, but O’Brien has no answer for them. It makes him guilty. 

The reality of fear is that it will eat you if you let it. That it can become more dangerous than the teeth and claws that every human bears that compares them to a wild beast. It does not hesitate to rip the throat out of lambs with eyes full of trust, it will watch as their blood is your drink, and their flesh is embedded between your claws. They will stare with eyes wide, unwavering—they trust you. An adult, with a service to them to keep them living, protecting their vitals and stagnant minds from the unapologetic world. You fail them each time you let their brain matter mix with the fluid. Heat fails them each time they are forced to recreate the scene for the same act with a new understudy.

With thousands of sheep in this world, they only need a cardinal lamb. 

Heat flinches at his desk, jolting awake from a nap he didn’t realize he was taking, a scream echoing in his ears that leaves his skin prickled in goosebumps. Heat’s wrist aches from where his head was rested on his hand. A pencil rumbles against the desk as it rolls to the floor, a gentle click indicating that the pristine point had shattered. It seems ironic. 

The paperwork he dozed off on was scattered, crinkled from being pressed down irregularly as he slept. His mind spins with thoughts, remnants of a dream forgotten, thinking back on it blurs his vision, the letters and vitals on the page become soup. O’Brien’s ability to understand his own work falters as his head pounds with the oncoming of a headache gifted from lack of caffeine or the overwhelming amount of paperwork he seems to have been left alone with. O’Brien rises from his chair and stretches, cracking his back before throwing himself back down into his chair. His weight rolls it across the floor, crunching over the pencil still discarded on the tile. He needs coffee. The chipped mug at his desk sat in the corner, cold, with a light film over the top that could be broken with a simple stir. He considers it. The film that coats the top of questionable liquid breaks as he dips his finger in, stirring it around pointlessly with no intention to drink it. The dates blur together as he tries to remember if it was what he made the day prior, or if it had been gifted to him by his assistant earlier. 

Heat sighs and runs a hand through his hair, it falls back into place over his left eye, a curtain of blonde that was dampened with sweat, lanky from being unwashed, he had been working for what felt like days. Catching up with documents and finalizing reports on their last subject, it felt like all his work was focused on the past. His paperwork would have to wait another day. It would become nonessential within days if Number 19, Seraphita, was unable to continue to perform. It would remain dormant on his desk until he had the energy to work with it again, or for his assistant to toy with.

“Bad dream?” Her voice is low, sultry, it startles him. O’Brien jolts at his desk, she laughs. It’s gentle, if she was kinder, he’d fall for it. He shudders, the air turns cold with her arrival. Ysabelle, his assistant, watches over him with concerned gold eyes. Her heels clicking against the tile of the office as she joins his side, snaking her around his shoulder and leaning closer so that her lips neared his ear. She reaches and presses the back of her gloved hand to his forehead, it moves down to caress his cheek, gentle.

“You’re warm.” She says. Her tone has the facade of warmth, but he knows there’s nothing there with good intentions. Sera is fooled by her outer persona, Heat is not. 

Swatting her hand from his face, he stares down hard at his papers, preferable to facing her. “I’m fine. Get back to work.” He has no patience. 

Ysabelle makes a clicking sound with her tongue, it drips with disapproval or hatred. He can’t decipher it, he doesn’t care. With no further comment, she turns on her heels. She leaves the room, allowing the door slam behind her. 

O’Brien leans forward, hiding his face back into his palms. Surely she was going off to report to Sheffield that he had been sleeping on the job. Providing ammunition to use during another round of an argument Heat would lose. 

It was possible to say that Ysabelle and Sheffield possessed a similar personality that would allow them to be compatible. However, these days it seemed as if Argilla had become a copy of Sheffield. Her behavior molted into attempted mind games that were unable to match that of her “boyfriend”. They were inseparable, standing together during breaks or meetings like high school mean girls, true motives hidden by designer sunglasses. 

No, that would imply that she originally had an independent personality. A woman like her seemed reliant on others to construct her, and Serph was an intelligent puppet master. She was the clay for his next project, her lack of a backbone or sense of worth allowed for her to be modeled in his very own preference of a chess piece. Manipulating her until she was unneeded, then he would move on allowing her to try and collect the shattered fragments of whatever self worth may remain. 

If he trusted her, he would consider helping. Though it would not matter at this point, his words of advice would be ignored, painted with an excuse of paranoia or jealousy and spitefulness of a scorned ex. It was an agility trial he had no intention of competing in. 

Frustrated, O’Brien collects his work, and shoves it into random folders, he could sort it later. For now, he had to get out of the office. He didn't like leaving early, especially when it meant that there was a chance for Sheffield to perform a test without his clearance, but it was a risk he would have to take. His body was aching, and his stress began to manifest physically to the tension in his jaw, locking his teeth together. 

The door to his shared office with Argilla closes heavy behind him, the clicking of a lock ensures that no one without a key will enter. O’Brien punches in the information for his time card and clocks out, ignoring the beep of protest it makes as he abandons his work in favor of rest. 

It gives him time to think. More time to consider the options in this scenario. The original intention of the Society is a farce, an ideology that was thrown away too quickly to be remembered by its patrons. O’Brien’s not sure he would have joined if he had known what it was intended for. To speak to God was an honor, something that no one had attempted, that no one had thought of on a scientific level. In a spiritual sense, everyone spoke to God. Through prayers whispered to clasped hands when the moon replaced the sun, they asked for his forgiveness, for his blessing--O’Brien thinks that he returned them with curses. That humanity demanded too selfishly of a Creator stretched thin.  
Jenna Angel, the director of the program, was the first to discover the residing of God. It happened years before he joined the society, and he felt the world shift their focus. A fetus in the womb, God had been hidden, curled in the sun with his eyes shut to the ugliness that was Man. His own creations salivating for his affection, his approval, and now with his location publicized, the rush of data would flood the container. The Sun was a mailbox stuffed till it was vomiting with sins and pleas, a hypothetical doorbell molested by greed. 

As much as his hatred for his coworker was carried through his veins, there was no possible way for O’Brien to root himself from Sheffield. A red string of fate that dug into their skin, leaving cuts in soft skin. He wishes it would cut, that they would be free, filling what felt like the Mariana Trench in depth. O’Brien lived the continuous cycle of insanity, intentionally or unintentionally keeping them connected by always opening the door for him. 

With hate came love, a deep repressed feeling that made him sick to his stomach. The desire for a relationship that was forgotten. They had never had official labels, more or less there were mutual agreements. They lived together during college, and continued to live with one another well after that. The “relationship” crumbled solely with the lives of the Cyber Shaman, the weight of each child’s death was an added stone on a sentence. It changed them both, or awoken an inner part, a metamorphosis that Heat and Serph on different pages—resulting in one sided arguments, fighting that lasted day in and day out until Sheffield left. The emptier apartment spoke louder than any words, no formal breakup needed. Reminding O’Brien that he had forgotten the pain of an empty bed. 

He wonders if he should have seen this coming. Sheffield, who was unreadable, keeping himself a closed book while he read others. Eventually O’Brien learned the first layer, but it was a lengthy process, you had to be dedicated to the craft of peeling back his layers. His behaviors were calm, collected, but never predictable, holding the higher ground compared to others who didn’t recognize. 

Though never verbally interested in God, Sheffield had expressed it once back in college, the one instance when they were younger where O’Brien felt fear, felt a confusion from his roommate the way he had back when the professor’s death was at his feet.

They had been laying together that night, sweaty and exhausted from what felt like thousands of hours of lectures. Sheffield pressed as closely as he could against O’Brien’s side despite the hot weather during early September. Blankets kicked off, clothes shed, no spoken words, lulled by crickets who sang to one another just outside their dorm window.

“Do you believe in a God? Any God?” 

“What?” Heat grumbled, “Where’s this coming from?” 

Sheffield sighed, his breath hot against Heat’s shoulder. “Just… wondering about something.” 

“Hm.” He grunted, he wasn’t in much of a mood for speaking, instead letting his eyes flutter shut. Sheffield sat up abruptly, their skin that had basically stuck together pulled apart in a way that was uncomfortable, not painful—just enough to make him open his eyes again. The light from the street lamps and faint hint of the moon back lit his figure. His shadowy silhouette felt malicious, a darker presence Heat had never noticed from his roommate. 

“I do,” Sheffield said, his tone dipping, cooling off the room. O’Brien propped himself up on his elbows. “There’s something I’d like to ask him. Something along those lines.” 

Heat stayed silent, but Sheffield stayed staring at him, his expression sharp, dark, expecting. 

“Okay-“

“Would you want to help me? Would you want to see God too?” 

“Where is this coming from Serph?” 

“Would you help me?” It came out more as a statement than a question.

“I don’t know.” 

“That’s all you had to say,” Sheffield said, laying back down beside him, resting his head on O’Brien’s pillow. “Think about it.” 

O'Brien didn’t realize then that Sheffield intended the Karma Society to be their answer. But in the morning he woke up to find a printed document of the so-called society lying where Sheffield has laid only hours before. It was what Sheffield had set his mind on, it was something he planned to talk O'Brien into. 

He didn’t know what changed Sheffield, if it was something offered by the Karma Society or if his behavior was always like this, hidden until it was able to be shown. The rules of the society were weak when it came to the researchers and other staff involved directly with the Cyber Shaman and Asura-01 program. Even the rule of not killing anyone became only paperwork. 

He felt as if there was no way to reach Sheffield, there was always a wall that divided them. Serph was able to slip behind anyone’s walls, but his own intentions would always be hidden. The weight of the projects is what separated them. He hadn’t changed, however, O’Brien had. Once nervous, too awkward to fit in, and too quiet to stand out--it was eaten by deep rage, uncontrollable anger that became undesirable. He was moody, difficult to deal with, and continuously struggling with the notion that his inability to properly work with his coworkers may be what results in such failures by the company. 

He throws his stuff down in the hall of his apartment. It’s dreary, wallpaper faded with age and peeling in the corners showing off hidden grudge. The color of the wallpaper, puckered from moisture, pulpy to the touch, and yellowed from cigarette smoke that fills the air occasionally. The tenant would be mad if they knew, and O’Brien knows if he ever were to escape this hell, there would be higher charges for the damages created. 

But he knows he won’t make it out alive. He is the shepherd with his back turned to the wolf who waits in the darkness, cruel jaws that snap with saliva flowing from jowls. Though the wolf would be nothing more than another soul in front of God who saw them all as equal before his gates, but it leaves him with questions unanswered. Standing there alone in the dark, O'Brien clasps his hands together in prayer, closing his eyes, if God was truly listening in on every prayer, every thought directed in His direction, would he be okay with what was happening?


End file.
